The J Crew

I bet it's closer to Feb. 1st than Christmas. Silver wanted a Christmas opening day, but that's too soon this year. A separate question is how they start, Michelle Roberts says it will have to be in bubbles around the country, and then hopefully fans in home arenas later in the season.

To further illustrate, in their most important game of the season, Toronto played Lowry, Van Vleet, Powell, Anunoby and Siakam the last 18 minutes of their 2 OT win tonight vs. the Celtics. Ibaka and Gasol were planted firmly on the bench. And Ibaka is pretty much purely a center now, played power forward next to Kendrick Perkins with OKC.

Who in the world is saying that Wiseman is too long or too fast? Where do you get this stuff from? And Bam Adebayo measured 6'8.75' at the combine, which kind of proves my point. He would have been a power forward 10 years ago, now he is an average-sized center.

He'll be better than Thabeet. But it will take a couple of seasons, he has a lot of development to do. My main point is the center position is just not that important anymore. Who were the best, old-style centers in the playoffs? Gobert and Embiid? Both done in the first round. 76ers didn't even win a game, and the Celts basically had a PF at center, 6'8" Daniel Theis. Rockets are playing Robert Covington and Jeff Green at center. Warriors Draymond at center. There are still old-school centers, like Jonas, but they can get schemed off the floor. We usually closed with Jaren at center the 2nd half of the season.

Who knows? Way too much to assume to answer the question. Is next year's draft like this year's draft, with no clear #1 and a weak top tier? If so, no, you are happy to stay at #10. Is it last year's draft, with a clear top 3 of Zion, Ja and RJ, then a big undefined tier after that? If so, those teams probably won't trade anyway. Would the Pels have traded the Zion pick, or us the Ja pick last year? No way. So question is probably moot. Teams rarely move more than a few spaces at the top of the draft. 76ers jumped two spots to take Fultz, and gave up a 1st for it. Mavs jumped 2 spots to take Luka, and gave the 1st that turned out to be #10 the next year for it.

Here's my take on DeAnthony. I bet he takes a big jump in his 3rd season, and we'll be glad we have him on a value contract. At one point he was the 4th best available RFA on one ranking. PeachTree Hoops said 4 years/$50M would be a fair offer sheet. Now, we won't have to pay him near that much. DeAnthony didn't play his last college season at USC. As a 2nd rounder, forced by injury and dysfunction in Phoenix to play out of position at Point Guard, actually started 31 games as a rookie. Comes here for his 2nd season, new system and new coach, still not sure how to use him. But we put him into the rotation after our 6-16 start, and we go 22-10 until the All Star Break. And in the process we figured out what DeAnthony is. He's a back-up 2. Not a point guard. Not a combo guard. A plus defender, a top 10% steals generator, a decent finisher. A poor 3 point shooter. But he's better at catch-and-shoot 3's - mid 30s in %, iirc - than pull up or off dribble 3s. Which also fits a 2 guard with a PG like Ja. So he's Avery Bradley. A little bit of a throw back. But very useful in this league of perimeter shooters. This season, if we re-sign him, will be his first coming into a training camp with a defined role that fits him. And he'll be 22 all season long. I think he will have a very good season.

So you've been ranting about how awful DeAnthony Melton is for two pages, but . . . we should also trade him for a first round pick? Hmmm. You lost me.

Fournier would be a fool to take his player option. He'll be 28 in October. He just had his best year as a pro, averaged 18 ppg on 40% shooting from 3. And he has the most sought after skill in the league - wing shooting. He needs to get his multi-year contract now. A team signs him for 4 years and they get his age 28, 29, 20 and 31 years. The amount of cap space isn't a huge factor for free agents anymore. Most FA's who change teams now do so by sign-and-trades, where the acquiring teams doesn't have to fit the whole first year contract under the cap with their existing roster. I went through some in another thread, but last year most of the top free agents who changed teams did so via sign-and-trade.

ODK, I don't understand the fascination either. It's like the couple of posters continually posting about James Wiseman, when there is a zero % chance of it happening, and Wiseman being a terrible fit with our roster. Yes, Oubre will probably be shopped, because Phoenix went 8-0 in the bubble, and Cam Johnson and Mikal Bridges will be the starters at PF and SF going forward. Cam is on his rookie deal for 3 more years. while Oubre has 1 year left, so of course Phoenix will see what's out there. But more likely they wait until the trade deadline, imo. Not like the Suns have cap issues, they only have $83M guaranteed going into '20'-'21. As for the Grizz interest, Kleiman and Co aren't going to give up on Justise before he has played a minute for the Grizz. They invested too much (way, way too much, imo) to get Justise to not give it a chance to work.

Wasted salary on Rubio? Where are you getting this from? I'm not a big Rubio fan, but I guarantee the Suns and their fans are quite happy with Rubio. Rubio finished 4th is assists pg in the entire league. Averaged 13, 5 and 9, and somehow shot 36% from 3. And he's a good defender. Most importantly for the Suns, they needed a vet leader. No surprise Devin Booker had his best year as a pro. Also Ayton was much improved. At $17M per for 3 years, that's a successful FA signing. And we shouldn't pay attention to agents putting out stories while the Raptors are still playing about teams supposedly interested in Van Vleet. Van Vleet is likely to stay in Toronto.

smit-tay griz is right. Kyle was not near 2nd worst on the team in TOV%. https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MEM/2020.html I'll eliminate Jordan Bell who only played 2 games at a 27.6 TOV%. DeAnthony: 19.2 Marko: 17.6 Ja: 17.0 Konchar: 15.6 Kyle: 15.3 Tolliver: 14.9 Jonas: 13.3 Gorgui: 13.2 Jae/Grayson: 10.9 Dillon: 9.7 BC: 9.4

Well, Tony Parker culturally appropriated Brent Barry's wife, so I guess things evened out. https://nypost.com/2010/11/19/inside-the-marriage-of-erin-barry-tony-parkers-sexting-gal-pal/#:~:text=Erin Barry%2C 38%2C the estranged,with the San Antonio Spurs.

Then why are hockey's ratings up? You have to look at the data and let that guide you. There's just no denying it.

I'm all in on the NBA, so don't care if they protest or kneel or what. But it's really undeniable that the politics of the bubble has hurt ratings. MLB, NHL playoffs, golf, even NASCAR are all doing well. Only the NBA is off: https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2020/08/nhl-stanley-cup-ratings-nbc-bruins-lightning-nba-postponements-mls/ B’s-Bolts most-watched second round opener in five years Sunday Night Baseball up from comparable week of last season

True, but 2002 was a horrible draft. Just try to look at this 1st round without losing your breakfast. Maybe 4 good, not great players? Yao Ming 1st overall, Amar'e, Caron Butler and Tayshaun? Btw, we will look back in a year and see that this draft will be similar to the 2003, 2103 drafts. Awful. We are lucky to convey this year. C China Houston Rockets Shanghai Sharks (China) 1 2 Jay Williams PG United States Chicago Bulls Duke (Jr.) 1 3 Mike Dunleavy Jr. SF/SG United States Golden State Warriors Duke (Jr.) 1 4 Drew Gooden PF/C United States Memphis Grizzlies Kansas (Jr.) 1 5 Nikoloz Tskitishvili PF/C Georgia Denver Nuggets Benetton Treviso (Italy) 1 6 Dajuan Wagner PG United States Cleveland Cavaliers Memphis (Fr.) 1 7 Nenê C/PF Brazil New York Knicks (traded to Denver)[7] Vasco da Gama (Brazil) 1 8 Chris Wilcox PF/C United States Los Angeles Clippers (from Atlanta) Maryland (So.) 1 9 Amar'e Stoudemire*~ PF/C United States Phoenix Suns Cypress Creek HS (Orlando, Florida) 1 10 Caron Butler+ SF United States Miami Heat Connecticut (So.) 1 11 Jared Jeffries PF/C United States Washington Wizards Indiana (So.) 1 12 Melvin Ely C/PF United States Los Angeles Clippers Fresno State (Sr.) 1 13 Marcus Haislip PF United States Milwaukee Bucks Tennessee (Jr.) 1 14 Fred Jones SG United States Indiana Pacers Oregon (Sr.) 1 15 Boštjan Nachbar SF/PF Slovenia Houston Rockets (from Toronto) Benetton Treviso (Italy) 1 16 Jiří Welsch SG/SF Czech Republic Philadelphia 76ers (traded to Golden State) Union Olimpija (Slovenia and Adriatic League) 1 17 Juan Dixon PG United States Washington Wizards (from New Orleans) Maryland (Sr.) 1 18 Curtis Borchardt C United States Orlando Magic (traded to Utah) Stanford (Jr.) 1 19 Ryan Humphrey PF United States Utah Jazz (traded to Orlando) Notre Dame (Sr.) 1 20 Kareem Rush SG United States Toronto Raptors (from Seattle via New York, traded to Los Angeles Lakers) Missouri (Jr.) 1 21 Qyntel Woods SF United States Portland Trail Blazers Northeast Mississippi CC (So.) 1 22 Casey Jacobsen SG United States Phoenix Suns (from Boston) Stanford (Jr.) 1 23 Tayshaun Prince SF United States Detroit Pistons Kentucky (Sr.) 1 24 Nenad Krstić C/PF FR Yugoslavia New Jersey Nets Partizan Belgrade (Sinalco Superleague and Adriatic League) 1 25 Frank Williams PG United States Denver Nuggets (from Dallas, traded to New York)[7] Illinois (Jr.) 1 26 John Salmons SF/SG United States San Antonio Spurs (traded to Philadelphia) Miami (Sr.) 1 27 Chris Jefferies SF United States Los Angeles Lakers (traded to Toronto) Fresno State (Jr.) 1 28 Dan Dickau PG United States Sacramento Kings (traded to Atlanta) Gonzaga (Sr.) 1 29 Forfeited pick Minnesota Timberwolves (forfeited their first-round pick due to salary cap violations)[8] 2 30 Steve Log